After a week at Rodney Bay trying to decrease the length of the "to do" list, we were glad to be off sailing at last with the start of World ARC 2014. For the previous three months Roger (skipper) had devoted every hour awake and some asleep, to the venture, from Winnipeg, Canada. Free and BrEasy was meanwhile on the hard in Greneda and only touched water a week before Christmas Day after Roger had spent a busy 2 weeks. Just to add to the list Roger's wife Annabelle, broke her ankle so its a miracle that Roger and Michael 1 were able to sail the boat to Rodney Bay in time for Michael 2 to join them. Just to make life even more interesting, Roger celebrated his 70th birthday in fine style with his sister, Jan, and brother in-law, Tim, taking him off for lunch and giving him his first cell phone and underwater camera!
Still on the to do list was sorting a microphone problem on the SSB radio so we were not able to take part in the daily roundup of positions. Occasionally Chez Nous appeared on our AIS but it felt like we were the only boat in the Caribbean Sea. We had some problems reefing and unreefing the main sail culminating in a slider popping out of the track so we ended up sailing mostly with fully reefed main. Despite this we recorded a top speed of 17.4 knots down a wave! The catamaran slammed a lot in the disturbed choppy waves and nobody was getting much sleep but we managed proper meals including Spaghetti Bolonaise, Shepherds Pie, Grilled Pork, Lasagne, Curry, Fish Risotto. Not bad for three men on a boat with limited culinary skills!
Moral was good until Roger turned in on the 5th night and heard a nasty graunching noise in the steering gear. On inspection down a tiny hole at the back of each hull, he could see the wires to the steering quadrants were loose. 4 hours later all was well but before that every attempt to tighten the adjustment bolt put strain on the the steering and left Michael 1 sweating with the physical effort of hand steering. At last we returned to the 3 hour watch pattern but OH to sleep.....
The night sailing was the best with bright moon and stars to accompany the lonely watch. One day we were honoured with a pod of 30+ dolphins which were surfing on the waves as well as diving between the hulls. But mostly we were busy sailing, sleeping, cooking or eating. The great novel will have to be written on the next leg! Roger still has not had time to play with his new birthday toys.
Up to now we had been able to communicate by email but then our inverter blew stopping us charging the computer. Weirdly the inverter turned out to be just near a drain hole which turned into a mini internal water spout every time a large wave slammed up between the hulls.
We eventually made it to the San Blas finish line having a race to the finish with Dinghy overnight. We anchored close to Adela in East Hollandaise Cays, who came over and welcomed us and invited us over for lunch. Thanks Michelle, Heather, James and Peter! We must have looked like we were returning from an interplanetary voyage. Michael 1 & 2 then had a chance to snorkel while Peter and Roger diagnosed the Inverter as beyond resuscitation, and then off to Shelter Bay before sun down. No coral island hopping or Pot Luck for us as we needed to allow as much time as possible to whittle the list down before the Pacific. Fingers crossed we will get an Inverter!
Michael 2